Publishers Weekly has an article discussing how books about atheism are in vogue. There’s nothing you haven’t heard before in the article, but I did think it was interesting to see how all these books have been selling. The numbers aren’t exact (they’re lower than the actual amounts), but they give you a good estimate of the relative successes of the various books:
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: 282,000 copies sold
The End of Faith by Sam Harris: 250,000 copies sold (says this article)
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris: 123,000 copies sold
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens: 58,000 copies sold
Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett: 52,000 copies sold
God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger: 60,000 copies shipped
I Sold My Soul on eBay by Hemant Mehta: 99,213,912 copies sold. (Ok, I made that up… But maybe if you bought a couple million copies, I wouldn’t have to do that.)
It’s also interesting to see how the atheist books stack up against recent popular Christian books (though it should be known that the numbers coming from BookScan do not include sales from Christian bookstores, so they are underestimates):
Interestingly, these [atheist] books are leading PW’s most recent hardcover religion bestseller list (published once a month), outranking such books as Joyce Meyer’s The Power of Simple Prayer (FaithWords), which, according to BookScan, has sold 32,000 copies since its April 3 pub; John and Stasi Eldredge’s Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul (Thomas Nelson), which has racked up 221,000 sold since April 2005; and Beth Moore’s Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk About God’s Deliverance (Thomas Nelson), with 40,000 sold since January. And talk about the loss of rapture: perennial Christian bestseller Tim LaHaye’s latest, Kingdom Come: The Final Victory (Left Behind #13), which Tyndale House published on April 3, has sold 46,000 copies to date, according to BookScan, a far cry from LaHaye’s previous numbers.
The article isn’t too long and it’s a good read if you’re interested in the publishing side of religious (and non-religious) books.
(Thanks to Donna for the link)
[tags]atheist, atheism, Publishers Weekly, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, The End of Faith, Sam Harris, God is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens, Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris, Breaking the Spell, Daniel Dennett, God: The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger, I Sold My Soul on eBay, Hemant Mehta, Christian, BookScan, Joyce Meyer, The Power of Simple Prayer, John Eldredge, Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, Beth Moore, Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk About God’s Deliverance, Tim LaHaye, Kingdom Come: The Final Victory, Left Behind[/tags]
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